If Nokia has shown us anything this year, it’s that they lack the leadership and capacity to take Windows Phone to the next level. So in tandem with Microsoft purchasing the important intellectual parts of Nokia as that firm inevitably disappears, the software giant should also release its own lineup of Surface-branded Windows Phone handsets which would feature quad-core processors, 32 GB of onboard storage with microSD expandability and come in 4-, 4.5-, and 5-inch “phablet” screen sizes, all offering 1280 x 768 resolutions.

I disagree that Nokia is circling the drain what with their shares going up and up and just today the news that the 920's in China sold out in 2 hours. They are hands down the best built phones around I've found and support their products better than any other company I've found. I'm not against him other comments though. Any thoughts?

Good Lord, what more does he want? Windows Phone could become the #2 o/s literally over night based on 920 sales and the next day his article would complain that Nokia doesn't have what it takes to be #1. These articles are becoming tiresome already.

I also disagree that Nokia are circling the drain, but agree that Nokia haven't demonstrated the best leadership skills, namely how they handled the Lumia 920 release. The service provider exclusivity was such a small detail that had a huge knock-on effect. Maybe Nokia took this direction as they wouldn't have been able to keep up with the supply/demand anyway, who knows. All I know is that the 920 would have exploded had they been available to all the big service providers.

I don't think its going down the drain. . Intact, it showing up signs of recovering. Ask him what people are buying after Samsung s3 and iphone5. The only problem with windows phone that folks might have is lack of apps and notifications. Even surface phone won't help windows phone if these things were missing

I've been reading Thurrott for years, but I have to disagree with him here. The Lumia 920 is far from perfect, but every problem that I have with it is SOFTWARE related. Who makes the software? If Microsoft launched a Surface phone today, it is unlikely that it would be as good as the 920 - the hardware probably wouldn't be as good, and the software would be the same.

Paul makes a lot of good points but this is one that I have to disagree with. Although windows phone is doing better, I think we can all agree it CAN do better if Microsoft focuses more. WP getting the top 47/50 apps from other platforms can be celebrated but why not get ALL 50? For that, I blame Microsoft. The entire WP platforms lacks some appeal because of a very few apps that general consumers look for - mainly instagram. On Nokia's end, I think they failed to execute on 2 fronts, one of which I don't think I can blame them for. The first is the name of their phones causes some confusion to general consumers. This reminds me of the galaxy s II story. That phone had so many different version with so many different names. What happened when the gsIII released? They kept the same name for the same phone throughout. Nokia should've taken a page out of samsungs book in this regard with the start of WP8. The second thing, which I don't blame them much for, is the distribution. The Lumia 920 was a hot item for like the entire month of November, but whenever you walked in the store they were sold out. I'm sure many ppl lost patience and just said to themselves "f**k it, it's just a phone, and it doesn't even have instagram" then went on to buy an iPhone or android phone. Not entirely sure if nokias to blame for this.

There's a few other things that bothered me that wasn't nokias fault, but I'm sured it stole some thunder from their phones. When you walked to an att store to play with the Lumia, if you wanted to test the camera, it was virtually impossible. Att puts their security thing right in front of the camera....that has to be one of the stupid ways for you to display a hot item. It just leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Microsoft should be blamed for a ton. Namely failure to launch a product in a timely manner and for launching a fairly unfinished product .
Nokia should be blamed for the naming of the pjone which I agree with and for calling the camera a pure view camera. Also for buggy batteries

Nokia is circling the drain and rim is that little bit of gunk just holding on for dear life. If the Lumia line fails so does nokia. But that's also Microsoft fault for not allowing OEMs to max out device hardware

If the surface is any indication of microsofts strategy for hardware is that they don't want to compromise profits on their end for the good of the platform. The surface rt can do so much better if it was priced cheaper, but Microsoft feels the need to have the same kinds of profits per device as apple does with their iPad. Look at what google is doing with their nexus line - tablets but mostly for the phones. They are sacrificing profits per device to get the device in the hands of as many ppl as possible. If Microsoft makes a surface phone, I'm afraid they're going to price just like the iPhone in order to maximize profits. That's so shortsighted. I hope they adopted googles strategy and prices it their surface phone low, gain market share which benefits the entire platform, then finally developers can port their great iPhone and android apps to WP.

One of my favorite things out of Nokia camp is when ppl were saying that HTC "copied" Nokia with bold colors on their phone. Nokias response was simply that it doesn't matter because it benefits the entire platform. Makes the entire platform look more appealing than iPhones and androids. This tells me that Nokia ACTUALLY Cares about the success of windows phone more than anything else....and more than Microsoft.

That's true but that's exactly my point, Microsoft has to make comprises for the good of the platform. Google won't be the only one getting in the way of windows phones success with amazon releasing a kindle phone next year also. I'm sure amazon will also use their tablet model to price their phones, selling the devices at a small loss to get as much ppl as possible into their ecosystem. I'm not insisting that Microsoft ought to sell their devices at a loss, but at least sacrifice some profits. This is what they did with the Xbox and look at the success it turned out to be - bringing in the most of the revenue of all their brands.

I do agree with Paul Thurrott that Nokia "lack[s] the . . . capacity to take Windows Phone to the next level". Microsoft would have sufficient cash and clout to ramp up manufacturing and get the necessary supplies/facilities to manufacture devices.

I believe that the problem with the limited availability of the WP8 Lumia products is not failure to anticipate demand but rather inability to procure components and manufacturing facilities.

I dunno, I thought I had a pretty good stock portfolio this year and then I doubled up on Nokia. Great year! But really the launch and limited availability made it pretty bad A lot of people don't realize they closed one of their European plants so therefore I think most of the phones we are seeing are coming out of their China plant and I think one more somewhere else in Europe or Asia. But yeah what do you expect from a company that was on the brink of going down like the Titanic. Not enough cash flow, therefore not enough production capabilities, therefore obvious shortage of phones.

But I am super excited to get my hands on a surface phone. Whenever Microsoft plans on releasing it.

The launch of the lumia was pretty bad, there was still question on when the phone would release only a few days before release and even then, people weren't sure if it was friday or sunday on that release week.

It has been almost two months and the supply has been an issue, it is not due to super high demand, but lack of shipments made to their carrier partners, almost two months, for a phone not even with a huge market o have supply issues is concerning especially when the issue is nokia getting these phones out properly and efficiently.

The phone itself is a good phone and i enjoy it, but it has issues just like other phones. Some hardware and some software that is fine, but this is my history of smartphones and I can't help but ignore:

Iphone original - phone worked fine eventually had major screen damage on top after 3 years.

iphone 3gs - eventually lost after 6 months of use, but no issues at all

iphone 4 - worked fine, had some lag and home button not responding well after 2 years of use.

Samsung focus S - within 5 months, had to do a warranty exchange due to usb issue where the phone kept thinking it was charged to usb creating OS lag andscreen staying on.

lumia 900 - Worked fine, but eventually had to do a warranty exchange at 6 months due to zune music not working properly where tellme kept popping up after a song finishes and the sound was muffled and couldn't hear the vocals. Then other OS issues persisted and had to get an exchange.

Lumia 920 - within a week, had to do an exchange through nokia due to battery issues and again, xbox music now having issues with tell me popping up while listening to music. The drain itself was just bad where i had to do a rrecharge by 2 or 3 pm every day. I got a replacement phone from nokia and this phone last me all day doing more.

So with iphones, i really had no issues other than wear and tear after a few years or use, but for windowsphone, every model i have gotten i had to do an exchange. People are going to blame the hardware more than the software and with the limited supply and some of the issues iwth the phone, NOkia may be shooting themselves in the foot.

All I'm gonna say is lol. I am loving my Nokia. The WP keyboard eats all others for lunch imo. Though I mainly use my phone for texting over anything else. The stability and fluidity of WP is leaps and bounds above android, and I won't buy into apples over priced hardware.

All I'm gonna say is lol. I am loving my Nokia. The WP keyboard eats all others for lunch imo. Though I mainly use my phone for texting over anything else. The stability and fluidity of WP is leaps and bounds above android, and I won't buy into apples over priced hardware.

Have you used other phones? WP kb isn't worst but definitely not the best ive used. As for stability, my wifes Lumia 920 reboot randomly every few days I tried reflashing but it still does the random reboots after portico update. I can say her Galaxy S3 stock never experienced this...

^^ Google don't mind slashing the prices of the Nexus line as the consumer will make up the difference (and some) once they're caught in the web of privacy data collection.

They don't slash prices, they use less expensive components for Nexus products. If you compromise on the screen, the chemical toxic composition of components, etc. You can like Chinese brands be a lot cheaper and still deliver what seems to be a decent product. You would be surprised how much you can save on costs and still meet legal standards.

The problem here is not the 'Hardware' the Lumia 920 is a top notch device 'Hardware wise', the problem is the lack of apps and developer's support to WP8, MS is not giving any decent incentive to gain developers and that is what will eventually kill WP8, WP7 after almost 2 years in the market still lacking a lot of APPS. So what's make you think it will be any different with WP8? and with Google looking to not develop for WP8, it will be very difficult. It's sad cuz I really liked the 920 and the WP8 OS by it self, but the lack of apps is just awful. I hate apple and currently I own an iPhone 5 just because if I need an App for something I can get it.

Have you used other phones? WP kb isn't worst but definitely not the best ive used. As for stability, my wifes Lumia 920 reboot randomly every few days I tried reflashing but it still does the random reboots after portico update. I can say her Galaxy S3 stock never experienced this...

my Nokia has never randomly rebooted. And I have a friend with a GS3 that he has to reboot often and lags at times, he hates it . Tech will always have hiccups and different people will experience different things, that is just the nature of the beast.

But honestly you cannot argue the fact that it took android "project butter" and massive hardware to even get close to the fluidity of wp7 on antiquated hardware.

And yes I have used other phones lol. I wouldn't be so naive to make a statement if I had no experience in what the statement was about. Everyone will like different things, I find the WP keyboard to be the most accurate and easy to type on virtual keyboard that I have used. That goes without saying that I obviously have not used all keyboards on all phones. Its just my opinion, not law by any means :)

Nokia completely botched the launch of the 820 and 920, but part of that was Microsoft's fault in delaying WP8 and the WP8 SDK.

I do agree with the premise that relying entirely on Nokia to push the ecosystem forward isn't a good idea. There need to be multiple options. Fortunately, HTC has stepped up to the plate, but that's also not enough -- Samsung needs to get serious and there needs to be a wide range of WP options.

Let's face it -- the 920 is a specialty phone for people who don't mind exchanging weight and thickness for a OIS camera and lower contract price.

Nokia is circling the drain and rim is that little bit of gunk just holding on for dear life.

Sorry to be Donald Downer here, but RIM is doing rather well, both compared to Nokia and compared to expectations. It just announced a quarterly profit on the continued strength of BlackBerry 7 device sales this past quarter, and expects to post a small loss this quarter due to ramp-up costs.

It generated almost a billion dollars in cash in the quarter, and has no debt.

If BlackBerry 10 is even a modest success, that will be enough to catapult RIM back to sustained profitability AND maintain third place in the global market. Plus, technically, BB 10 looks amazing. And, unlike WP8, it will be supported by every major carrier in the US and worldwide.

^^ Google don't mind slashing the prices of the Nexus line as the consumer will make up the difference (and some) once they're caught in the web of privacy data collection.

Sorry to burst your bubble but Google only slahes the price of the nexus line for the US Market and the extreme few markets who can purchase it directly from them. The rest of the world has to pay the same price for the nexus line as any other top phone is priced.
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